Yes, by now most of us know that the cheapest car in the world is the Tata Nano, which made its debut in India in 2008 with a starting price tag of 100,000 rupees ($2,172 USD). But what if a car like the Nano comes to the United States?

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Tata bringing a version of the Nano to the United States and it probably won’t be the last. Nonetheless, if Tata does bring the Nano to the United States it will have to step up the safety of the vehicle.

With that in mind: “It won’t be a $2,000 car; it will be a $7,000 or $8,000 car,” Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Group, said at an event at Cornell University’s College of Art, Architecture and Planning. “But it will still be, in comparative terms, a car that the U.S. would accept.”

Whenever the Nano decided to come to the United States, Tata said that it would be produced “the same design philosophy” and “frugal engineering” that informed development of the Nano.